Not a single one of the Panthers second down plays went for positive yardage. Two of the five went backwards, one went for no gain and two were incomplete passes. The Panthers’ average second down was 2nd-and-7, their average third down was 3rd-and-9. That’s bad – that’s really, really bad.

Any examination of the second down issues has to start with the run. The Panthers ran the ball twice on second down, both of which were stuffed. The first of these actually looks to have been relatively well designed, but is failed by execution. The plan looks to be to force the edge runner outside with the fullback, creating space for the fullback to then kick inside to the linebacker while the pulling TE and guard kick-out the edge rusher and other linebacker.

Olsen and Armah here both don’t do a great job of locating their blocks, and this would likely have limited the gain the play was able to make, but the bigger issue was Daryl Williams getting blown up at the point of attack. He doesn’t need to blow the guy backwards, but with his arms this wide and by leaning into the block as he does, he makes it far too easy for the end to shed the block and make the tackle.

The run that actually went backwards, however, is harder to blame on an individual block, as it seems here that the Panthers were just trying to run an outside power and failed to get any push whatsoever:

Not a lot to like here, but the defense gets paid too and sometimes plays don’t work.

The knock-on effect of failing to run the ball at all is that when the Panthers tried to run a hard play-action on the second drive, the Pats didn’t bite at all, with the edge rushers going straight for the quarterback and Newton turning round after his deep drop to find Van Noy already upon him:

Yes, Manhertz and Williams could be better here, but it’s hard to protect this deep into the pocket and whereas Newton would be able to step up into the pocket on a straight drop, here, he is a sitting duck.

The two incompletions thrown on second down are both less worrying, as the first is a slight miscommunication on a screen, the sort of issue that won’t be unique to the Panthers in the early season:

And the second was due to Allen passing over a wide-open short pass for a sideline throw which he then misses:

It’s hard to be too dramatic about five poor plays, but the inability of the starters to run the ball effectively and propensity for third-and-longs they can’t convert throughout the preseason – they have the second lowest third down conversion percentage (23.08%) in the league through three preseason games – should be something of a worry. The Panthers are hoping that they have improved their offensive line this offseason, but this isn’t the 2014 Cowboys, they aren’t going to be blowing people backwards off the ball nor are they going to be able to pass set consistently if there is no threat of them ever running the ball.

This team needs to be able to run the ball, and to do that they need to be able to block zonally with control, something they failed to do against the Patriots.

There are a lot of reasons not to panic – the likely simplified offense, the absence of Cam Newton for a large chunk of the first half and the desire not to run McCaffrey into the ground to name but a few – but the offensive line failed to generate much push to aid the running backs and the passing game never managed to develop any rhythm anyway. We won’t know for sure how this offense is actually going to look until they take the field against the Rams, but they need to get better, a lot better, and quickly.

Vincent Richardson

Managing Editor at Riot Report

Fan of zone coverage, knee bend and running backs running routes. Twitter: @vrichardson444